Key Points
- A massive Republican tax and spending bill has moved to the House after passing the Senate.
- The bill faces major opposition within the Republican party from two sides: hardliners who say it spends too much, and moderates who oppose its healthcare cuts.
- The legislation is projected to add $3.4 trillion to the national debt over ten years.
- President Trump is pressuring Republicans to pass the bill before the July 4th holiday.
A massive tax-and-spending bill championed by President Donald Trump is now in the hands of the House of Representatives, where it faces a tough fight within the Republican party. After narrowly passing the Senate, party leaders are now scrambling to overcome deep divisions over the bill’s cost and its cuts to healthcare, to meet a self-imposed July 4th deadline.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is pushing to pass a bill that extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and boosts funding for the military and immigration enforcement. But the bill comes with a hefty price tag, adding an estimated $3.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
The biggest hurdle for Johnson comes from his party. A group of hardline conservatives is furious that the bill doesn’t cut spending enough and that it includes a $5 trillion increase to the nation’s debt ceiling. At the same time, other more moderate Republicans are worried about the bill’s more than $900 million in cuts to the Medicaid program, which provides healthcare for low-income Americans and supports rural hospitals.
With a razor-thin majority, Johnson can only afford to lose a handful of Republican votes, as Democrats are united in their opposition. Democrats have slammed the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that hurts working families, calling it the “largest assault on American healthcare in history.”
President Trump is pushing hard for a win before the holiday, urging Republicans to stand firm. Any changes made by the House would send the bill back to the Senate, making it nearly impossible to pass by the July 4th deadline.
